


This World Now

by sasha_b



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Gen, Not Prime Time, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4192047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl progresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This World Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> For the Not Ready for Prime Time challenge 2015, wherein my recipient was interested in _The friendship between Rick and Daryl has fascinated me since Season One, starting out antagonistic and ending up so meaningful and supportive. You can write gen or slash for me with them; snapshots of moments along the way during canon, or something that breaks away from the show, or set after the end of the current season, it's up to you. Just - these boys, leaning on each other to survive the end of the world._
> 
> I am really fascinated by Daryl's progression and how he survived all the crap he had to, so I ended up focusing mostly on him, but I did try and include his thoughts on Rick as a catalyst for some of the things he does. I normally write from Rick's POV, so this was interesting to do, and I really enjoyed rewatching seasons three and four, because I'd forgotten the good moments as I tend to focus on season two, which is my favorite.
> 
> SPOILERS for the end of season five are also included here.

You watch him as he still holds the stick – wand – whatever the fuck it is with the walker attached to it, screaming at Shane, calling him _brother_ in what you assume is a last ditch effort to stop him from doing what you think he’s gonna do.

You hold your shotgun and you stand in front of what passes for – no, fuck it, _is_ your family, and you wait and don’t jump when the shots ring out, when someone takes care of the walker that Rick’s still holding by the loop around its neck, you wait as the things shamble out of the barn, standing close to Shane, even after what he’s done.

Andrea’s next and then T Dog and finally Glen and still Rick stands there, frozen, the cries of his wife and son almost overpowering the ones from the old man’s family and you fire and it’s louder, more deafening than any noise ever.

But you do it because it’s what you do in this world now, and you’re good at it and you’re starting to think of Rick as something better than how you’d seen him in the beginning. You want to help him because he’s helped you. And Carol. And the rest.

And then it’s quiet, and you lower your arm that holds the shotgun, and the silence that’s there is – unbelievable, oppressive, the pressure from the air crushing your lungs and there’s a sound like the first breath, the very first breath the world took, and your eyes swing to the door as the last thing comes out.

And you can’t 

You can’t look at anything else

The blue shirt, the dirty tennis shoes, the ragged hole at her throat that of course didn’t heal, dotted with flies and black blood and she growls and Carol moans and that’s what makes you snap and you snatch at her just as she attempts to run past you into death’s skinny, dirty arms.

The silence stretches, broken only by sobbing that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, and you don’t know if you’ve done anything in your life other than to hold on to Carol. The sun heaves overhead, burning in its normal route, scalding and frying and you wait for the few of you that stand there to twist and go up in fleshy piles of smoke – things can never be the same. You unfreeze your joints and you know you’ve got to let go of Carol sometime, because you need to do _something_ even as the sweat pours and your shirt sticks to you, a second skin that clings and muffles and you start to let go of Carol’s arm, even as the dead thing that was a little girl shuffles and growls toward you and your family.

And then Rick walks forward and pulls his Colt and you know he’s going to finish what Shane started, what Shane should have done, and Carol’s a stiff, unyielding mess and you watch, not letting yourself look away, as Rick puts the monster down that you’ve been spending all your energies looking for these past few weeks.

The single shot is quiet, the rapport tinny and small and not something that is worthy of the girl and her tiny, short life.

*

You know what you’re going to find before you find it. The sun is bright and cheerful and the weather is just taking its turn to Fall; in the south that usually comes in quick bursts. Like one day it’s a thousand degrees and then within two more it’s dropped to manageable, like you can actually breathe again.

The governor’s men are gone or dead on the ground, and there are what seems like newly risen people shambling, eating, growling, and you waste an arrow on one while your eyes train on something you really don’t want to see, surprise etching furrows on your face. Even though you had known deep down that you’d find it. Based on what Michonne had told you he was doing.

Rick hadn’t been able to follow through on what the governor had wanted. You’d hoped he wouldn’t – that’s not the kind of person he is, not what he’s turned in to, not what he’d ever been, really. At first, a while ago, that had puzzled and confused you, had made you angry when you didn’t understand his motives, had pissed you the hell off when he’d tried to hold the moral ground when that wasn’t the right thing to do. But as you’ve spent more time with him, gotten to know him and his family (your family) you’ve realized that it makes you feel something you’ve not felt in … well maybe forever.

Except you do want your brother back, like you’d told Merle at the prison. Maybe things can be different. Maybe you and him can have a real family, can make a real go of it, can do something or be the things you’d never dared hope for as a small, cowed boy, and then as the blank slate you’d become as a teen in the woods behind your broken home.

The growling thing wearing Merle’s shirt and dripping guts from its mouth is and isn’t your brother, and your face collapses in a paroxysm of fear and sorrow so great your body doesn’t even feel like yours anymore. It – he – shambles toward you and you shove it away, not wanting to do what you know you’re going to have to, tears and snot and salt coating your cheeks and you shove at it again. Merle’s – its eyes – are shot through with red lines and the mockery it makes of his form! Fuck, fuck this, fuck everything! 

A buzzing fills your brain and you do what you have to.

You stab it in the forehead and face too many times to count, and when it’s done you collapse on your back and you sob and you stare at the sun and you wonder if this is worse than Sophia or better, or worse? Or is it better?

You want someone to blame, but when your thoughts automatically go to Rick you can’t reconcile that, as it’s not his fault for taking the right road, and when you realize that you’ve changed exponentially from the person you were – you sit upright and stop crying and stare at the mess of what had once been Merle, your asshole older brother and you think –

_He’d never done nothing like this in his whole life._

And when you repeat those words to Carol (and later Rick, who puts his hand on your shoulder and stares into your face and _understands_ like you'd known he would and suffers with you), she gets it, and her _he gave us a chance_ echoes down through your brain, reminiscent of the stones you and Merle had thrown into the pond behind the high school if only to see which one of you could make the ripples last the longest. You take her hand and let her haul you to your feet.

You and Rick stand next to each other in the cool damp of block C and you want to say something, want to say you’re sorry for the things Merle did, but then Rick looks at you and repeats _he gave us a chance_ and you start and cock your head, staring at Rick through slitted eyes, and you hold your gun in two hands and wonder when the fuck this man had begin to worm his way into your life just as Merle was making the choice to exit it on his own terms.

So later when you find the man Morgan or he finds you and he saves you and Aaron you know that what Rick needs is to have this man back in his life, to remind him that after all his loss and the things that have happened there is some good here still. Cause Rick had reminded you of that too, even after Sophia and after Merle.

So when you make it back to Alexandria and you bring Morgan through and you find Rick standing with blood on his face and a gun in his hand and the man – what the fuck was his name, the drunk doctor – dead at his feet and the other man dead with his throat slashed – 

Maybe things haven’t changed as much as you’d hoped. Maybe this world is too much for all of you. That makes your brain melt and you make a sound that you hadn’t meant to make and –

Rick meets your eyes and then his gaze ticks to Morgan and Morgan says “Rick?” like he can’t …he won’t… and you look up and you wonder how many more times the sun can rise on this kind of thing and not give a shit.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write in second person but it seemed right for this. I really hope my recipient is okay with what I did here, and I enjoyed the process a lot. Thanks so much to anyone/everyone who takes the time to read this!
> 
> And I suck at summaries btw. Sorry about that. LOL. :)


End file.
